Here For Hutch

Happy New Year!!

Hi All,

Hope everyone is having a nice start to the New Year. I am so sorry it has taken me so long to update the blog, and now I have so major catching up to do. Because I haven't blogged since February 2011, I am going to start with highlights of the summer and stuff going on now with many pictures, as always.

Highlights of the Summer

For several months at the end of last school year, I had been in contact with Dad's doctor, Dr. George Fisher, about helping out at the Stanford Cancer Center over the summer. I was still 14 years old, but with Dr. Fisher's help and a lot of paperwork, I was able to work 3 days a week at Stanford from June 17-August 19. I spent 4 weeks in the Cancer Center and then had the privledge to spend my last 3ish weeks in the Lokey Stem Cell Research Building.  At the Cancer Center I did things like, sitting in on Tumor Board meetings, filing papers, creating a brochure of services to cope with chemotherapy and even went to a few patient meetings with Dr. Fisher when appropriate. I would have to say my favorite thing was the Tumor Board Meetings where medical school students presented their patient's situation and as a group the other students, doctors, radiologists, surgeons, etc. decided on the best way to treat this patient. Dr. Fisher led the meetings. Whether it is radiation, chemotherapy or another option, I thought it was really interesting how they chose the type of treatment based on the patient's background, type of cancer, age, weight, etc.

In the Stem Cell Lab I worked with Dr. Piero Dalerba from Italy. I looked at relationships between genes in normal breast tissue and cancer breast tissue using microscopes and computers. Since I wasn't 16, my jobs were limited because I wasn't allowed inside the Lab. I worked in a separate office and used lab tools under assistance of Dr. Dalerba when needed. I also looked at relationships of genes in colon cancer tissue and non-colon cancer tissue. Dr. Dalerba recently submitted our findings this summer to the New England Journal of Medicine. Currently, the paper is under review and hopefully will be accepted soon.  This was an AMAZING experience and I hope to back back next summer.

Emily and I played on travel softball teams as usual. Our mom went with Emily and her team to San Diego for the California State Games while my team played in a tournament in San Maria. Meanwhile, Gavin stayed in San Carlos with Grandma Jackie.

We took our annual trip to Yosemite at the end on July and this time our cousins Connor and Elizabeth and Aunt Tracy and Uncle Barry came too. Barry is the youngest in our Dad's family and we loved having them come to visit! (From left to right: Connor, Uncle Barry, Elizabeth and Aunt Tracy). 

We also celebrated Grandma Jackie's 80th birthday, multiple times. First we took her up to Sonoma. We stayed at the Kondo family's house for 4 days in June and grandma loved it.
Then we hosted a few of her friends over to our house for a  birthday luncheon and Gavin, Emily and I made her a garden cake that she loved.  In the picture our Gandma is in the green sweater.

 
Lastly, on her real birthday, August 27th, we took her to a Giants game that was giving out Tim Lincecum bobbleheads to the first 25,000 fans. We stood in line for a couple hours and everyone got a booblehead, including Gavin.

 

We all started school the last week of August. Gavin 1st grade, Emily 7th grade and I started 10th grade (sophmore) in high school. Labor Day weekend we went back to Pittsburgh, PA to visit our Dad's side of the family. We had a great time catching up with everyone and especially seeing our grandma JoJo again.  We stayed with our uncle Tim and aunt Carolyn and cousins Maggie, Katie and Julie.

In late October, we got a visit from our Dad's roommate from Notre Dame, Tals and his wife, Gretchen. They came a few days before Halloween and Tals helped Gavin harvest the carrots in his garden. We were able to eat his carrots in a salad that night, and they weren't half bad.  
The Present

Sports. Emily is playing basketball for her school, I am playing on the varsity soccer team at my high school and Gavin is joining a basketball team through the San Carlos Youth Center. He continuously comes home with new sayings he learns from his 1st grade teacher. He says thinks like, "you're as lazy as a bump on a pickle" and "if you mess with the bull, you get the horns".

We are all doing really well in school and having a good time. Our mom is looking into tuning up her bike and getting back in shape to do a biking event this year.

I just finished an online driver's ed course and am waiting for my certificate of completion to come in the mail. Then I have to go to the DMV and take the learner's permit test. Then driver with a permit for 6 months before I can get my drivers license!

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and has a nice start to the new year :)

-Jackie Hutch

Happy 2011

Hey everyone,

Hope you all had a good start to the new year. Sorry I havent posted in such a long time. Currently, we (Hutch fam + Grandma Jackie) are hanging out in Vail/Beaver Creek Colorado, staying in the lovely home of Mom's friends Jim Progin and Judy Holmes.  We had a visit from our good friends Don and Amy Conkin. Amy was our moms roommate at Colorado College. Gavin has assigned nicknames to the both of them. Amy is "Paul's mom" and Don is "Paul".  We are still trying to figure where Paul came from. We skiied today (2-19), sledding tomorrow (2-20) and skiing again monday (2-21).  The Obamas are here too.  We had a 3 hour delay leaving SF because President Obama was there and now we arrive here and his family is on the slopes.  They cause a lot of congestion. I go back to school on wednesday (2-23). Gavin and Emily go back on the next monday (2-28).

The last update was Thanksgiving, so we have Christmas and new years to now to catch up on. I will include as many pictures as possible.

Christmas:

Santa was very good to us this year. He brought Emily and I new phones, Gavin a new wii game and Bailey some dog bones.  On Christmas eve at 5pm we went to the Christmas pagent at church. Gavin was a shepard and Emily was a reader. My job in the pagent was to make sure the shepards didnt beat each other up and that the angels' hair looked okay. We opened presents on Christmas morning with Grandma and had Christmas dinner with Mr. Dan Deyoung, a good family friend of ours who Gavin now calls Grandpa Dan.

New Years Eve and Day:

For the New Years we went to L.A to see family, go to Disneyland and see the Rose Parade.  Mom's cousin, Sara and her family, Uncle Harry and aunt Amy, and Mom's cousin Peter and his family were all there. Here are cousins Naomi and Luke and the three Hutchs.

 
We also took a trip to Disneyland with the Kondo family.

 

After a long day in Disneyland, we went home and slept for the rest of the day. The next day, Grandpa Harry took us on a tour of the Japanese National Museum.  His family, including our own Grandpa (mom's dad, husband of gma jackie) were in put internment camps during WW2. He told us his stories and I thought it was very interesting. Harry and his familys' names are engraved on glass inside the building and our names(gavin, emily and I) are currently engraved on the ground outside the museum building.

The next day we went to the Rose Parade. Our Dad's roommate from Notre Dame, John McAlister (JG), got tickets for us and the Kondo family to the Rose Parade. We were up and out of the house by 6am New Years Day morning. In the grand stands at 7am sharp. Then we had 2 more hours until the parade started. We found someplace to eat and get warm before sitting for the next 2 hours to watch the 94-float long parade. The Pac-Man float and the U of Wisconsin marching band were our favorites.

 
The Harlem Globetrotters:

In January we took Gavin to see the Harlem Globetrotters, Grandma's treat.  I had been before but no one else had. Gavin even got a picture and autograph with one of the players (Special K) after the game.

 

Gavin's Birthday:

On Feburary 12 we celebrated Gavins 6th birthday party. We had a joint party with his good friend from school, Quinn, who had his 6th birthday on Feburary 10th. We had a 5-in-1 jumpy with a slide, climbing wall, obstacle course, basketball hoop and the jumpy. We also had a cotton candy machine that the thirty 5 and 6 year olds that were there wouldnt stop eating. It was a blast!! Gavin is on the left and Quinn on the right with the curly hair.

 

Today we went down the slopes and had a real fun time, but we are all really sore. It was Gavin's first time and he loved ski school. He came back showing us how to make a pizza with his skis. Emily, mom and I had a private lesson for half the day just to get back in to the rythm.  In the afternoon we took Gavin up on the Gondola and all skiied together.  So cool.

 
 

 
Now-

Mom is...

*training for a 5k

*driving non-stop from 3-6ish

*possibly starting to work again(if you have any ideas let us know) maybe even at Stanford :)

Emily is...

* starting an acting class and loves it

* playing on the 6th grade A basketball team

*starting up softball again

Gavin is...

*starting t-ball in a couple weeks

*loving school

*learning how to tie his own shoes...finally

I am...

*finishing my Varsity soccer season

*starting to train with the Varsity softball team

*helping coach Emily's basketball team

Thats about it with the Hutch family. Thanks for reading

-Jackie :)

2nd Anniversary and Thanksgiving

Hi everyone-

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. Most everyone reading this knows that Thanksgiving day was the 2nd anniversary of our dad's passing. We did a lot of fun things to remember him and celebrate and give thanks.   This post is going to mostly pictures and captions of our day yesterday.

 
Tuesday-November 23: Gavin and his kindergarden class had a thanksgiving feast for their friends and family. They dressed up like pilgrims.

 

 
Thursday: we added some flowers and engraved rocks to our dad's memorial garden in the backyard with our family from Davis, California. Auntie Ann, Uncle Jamie and our cousin Benji.

 Thursday: The rocks were engraved by our mom's friend Donna. Thanks Donna! The little rock in the bottom right corner reads " Our fingerprints do not fade from the lives we touch."

 

Thursday: We put Uncle Jamie in charge of the deep-fried turkey...

 

Thursday: And it turned out great!

  Thursday: We all dressed in the pilgrim hats from the kindergarden feast and Gavin was the Indian Chief of our tribe.  :)

We all missed Hutch this year. He was a friend to all who knew him. He will be remembered in our hearts for years to come.   Happy Thanksgiving everyone! -Jackie :)

We are the Champions!!

Heyy everyone-

Happy Veteran's Dayy!! I decided that I would do one last blog post before the 2nd anniversary of Dad's passing...which is right aroung the corner.  Exactly, 2 weeks away...November 25.  This year it lands on Thanksgiving Day. We plan on fixing up the garden we made last year, having a bite to eat at our favorite Irish pub in San Carlos, St. James Gate and taking a trip over to Half Moon Bay to go to Dad's favorite beach. Then we'll come home for a nice Thanksgiving dinner.  Some of our cousins, Aunt Ann and Uncle Jamie and Benji are all coming down from Davis, California for Thanksgiving, so Thanksgiving this year should be really fun.  For this update I think I am just going to write a paragraph or two about everyone with a couple pictures in between. First up..mama.

Mom: Things are remaining the same for our mom these days. She is driving to and from practices from about 3-7pm everyday and i have to say she is pretty good at it now. She still hits the gym every once in a while so she is, as Emily would say, "Mom is a hottie with a body!!". She has also decided to do this new mother daughter/son date night every week. Basically, she takes one of us, Emily Gavin or me, out to dinner once a week and we just get to hang out. I was the first one and my week was this week. We went out to dinner and Chevys last night and got pedicures. It was a lot of funn!! Emily will be next week and Gavin will follow. We are really looking foward to continuing this.

Emily: Emily's season representing the Tierra Linda timberwolves in volleyball just ended. They made it in to the playoffs and then lost in the first round to JLS Middle School in Palo Alto. Now she is looking forward to trying out for the Tierra Linda basketball team in January. Emily was a crazed Giants fan, (who by the way won the World Series) for Halloween with a couple of her friends from school. Gavin was a skeleton and I was not really gonna dress up until I found my Dad's old Jack head in the basement and a suit and I was good to go.

 

Gavin: Gavin on the other hand is a serious Giants fan. For the past couple weeks he has cut out every single article in the newspaper about the Giants. He hung them all up in his room. Gavin also knows every single player, where they play, and what there number is. Next time you see him you definately need to quiz him on the Giants players.

When they won the World Series he almost peed himself he was so happy. My mom and I talked it over and decided that we had to take him to the parade. The next day, we all called in sick with the orange and black flu and headed out on Bart to the city with some other friends. There were millions of people but it was soo much fun. Here is a picture on Gavin and Anthony, another guy that went with us, in the Civic Center in San Francisco before the parade.

 

Me: High School homework and sports are keeping me very busy. A few weeks ago in my World Studies class, we had to do a project about our families customs and traditions. So of course, I had to say our traditions were all about Notre Dame. My teacher, being a Stanford grad, gave me 100% but at the bottom of my paper he wrote " very solid and informative even though, I dont like ND!". I brought this home to show everyone and we thought it was hillarious.

I tried out for the Sequoia high school soccer team last week and I made the JV team, and I have a possibility of moving up on to the Varsity team. For the first couple weeks I am going to practice and play in a couple non-league games with the varsity team.  By the middle of December, when the real season starts, I will know exactly which team I am on. I will let everyone know when I find out where I will be playing. I have also been reading an excellent book called "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch.  Randy was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and died of pancreatic cancer three months before Dad.  He and Dad talked and emailed regularly and were good friends.  I usually hate reading and I think it is a complete waste of time.  But, this book is amazing and I would recommend it to everyone.  It is an easy read and is a great story about life lessons.

That's about it for the Hutch update. We are all looking forward to celebrating and rememberign Dad on November 25th....2 years.   Seems like it isn't even possible for it to be 2 years.  I will try to post again of Thanksgiving Day with pictures of the day and what we did.

Thanks for reading- Jackie Hutch :)

A picture is worth a thousand words

Hey all,

Jackie again with another update. All posts from now on I am going to try and keep short and to the point since we have been very busy the past couple months and the holidays are coming up. But the blog will always remain a priority to our family, or at least me :).   This post is full of pictures....because pictures are worth 1,000 words.

Past:

 

July: -Trip to Yosemite (7th-12th): This year we had the oppurtunity to add a page dedicated to our dad in the Book of Memories at the Yosemite chapel.   Our whole group signed the book.  We also went back to the secret place near our rafting spot and found our Dad's memorial rock.....still there, looks perfect.  We decorated it again.

 

        -My 14th birthday (10th)

  We made a trip back to Pittsburgh to visit Grandma JoJo and our whole family on Dads side (28th-31st).   We celebrated JoJo's birthday and had a really fun time.

 

 

August: - Emily's softball team goes to Western National in Tucson, Arizona (1st-8th)

            -I joined a new soccer team, 17U class 3 team. (9th)

            - I start first day of High School at Sequoia(18th)

            - Emily starts 6th grade at Tierra Linda and Gavin starts Kindergarden at Heather (28th)

 
 

September: - To Sonoma for Jon and Kim Kondo's 20th wedding anniversary (3rd-6th)

                  - Dad's good friend Kent Lenci passes away, Emily and I read at the funeral (9th)

                 -  Gavins first U6 soccer game with the Black Jets (11th)

 

                 - Gavin gets treated to his first Giants game vs. the Dodgers (15th)

                 - Emily makes school volleyball team (17th)

                 - ND Irish football team suffers loss at the hands of the Stanford Cardinal (25th)

October: - Mom heads off to New Hampshire for a Tuck @ Dartmouth Class Reunion (9/30th-10/3rd)

              - Memorial dedication to our Dad on campus at Tuck (1st)

              - Emily's 11th birthday (6th)

 

           Present and Future:

• We are all really enjoying school and very busy with afterschool activities as well as school work
• Mom is acually starting to workout again. She goes to run and swim at the gym at least twice a week, or that is what she is telling us :)
• Emily is now the tallest in the family, she has passed up both mom and I
• Both Emily and I are keeping our grades up, which are now our top priority
• We are working on plans for the 2nd anniversary of Dad's passing, which lands exactly on Thanksgiving, November 25th, this year.  We are hoping to possibly go down the LA to visit family and see the ND vs. USC game.
• Hope everyone reading this had an amazing summer and has a good start to the school year. Hope to see everyone soon and I will update ASAP.  ;) - Jackie

 

A picture is worth a thousand words

Hey all,

Jackie again with another update. All posts from now on I am going to try and keep short and to the point since we have been very busy the past couple months and the holidays are coming up. But the blog will always remain a priority to our family, or at least me :).   This post is full of pictures....because pictures are worth 1,000 words.

Past:

 

July: -Trip to Yosemite (7th-12th): This year we had the oppurtunity to add a page dedicated to our dad in the Book of Memories at the Yosemite chapel.   Our whole group signed the book.  We also went back to the secret place near our rafting spot and found our Dad's memorial rock.....still there, looks perfect.  We decorated it again.

 

        -My 14th birthday (10th)

  We made a trip back to Pittsburgh to visit Grandma JoJo and our whole family on Dads side (28th-31st).   We celebrated JoJo's birthday and had a really fun time.

 

 

August: - Emily's softball team goes to Western National in Tucson, Arizona (1st-8th)

            -I joined a new soccer team, 17U class 3 team. (9th)

            - I start first day of High School at Sequoia(18th)

            - Emily starts 6th grade at Tierra Linda and Gavin starts Kindergarden at Heather (28th)

 
 

September: - To Sonoma for Jon and Kim Kondo's 20th wedding anniversary (3rd-6th)

                  - Dad's good friend Kent Lenci passes away, Emily and I read at the funeral (9th)

                 -  Gavins first U6 soccer game with the Black Jets (11th)

 

                 - Gavin gets treated to his first Giants game vs. the Dodgers (15th)

                 - Emily makes school volleyball team (17th)

                 - ND Irish football team suffers loss at the hands of the Stanford Cardinal (25th)

October: - Mom heads off to New Hampshire for a Tuck @ Dartmouth Class Reunion (9/30th-10/3rd)

              - Memorial dedication to our Dad on campus at Tuck (1st)

              - Emily's 11th birthday (6th)

 

           Present and Future:

• We are all really enjoying school and very busy with afterschool activities as well as school work
• Mom is acually starting to workout again. She goes to run and swim at the gym at least twice a week, or that is what she is telling us :)
• Emily is now the tallest in the family, she has passed up both mom and I
• Both Emily and I are keeping our grades up, which are now our top priority
• We are working on plans for the 2nd anniversary of Dad's passing, which lands exactly on Thanksgiving, November 25th, this year.  We are hoping to possibly go down the LA to visit family and see the ND vs. USC game.
• Hope everyone reading this had an amazing summer and has a good start to the school year. Hope to see everyone soon and I will update ASAP.  ;) - Jackie

 

Carlmont relay speech

 

Hi everyone,

For those of you who didnt have a chance to make it to the Relay for Life this year or didnt know that I was even speaking, here it is. I had a really good time speaking last weekend and hope that I will get the opportunity to do it again. Please give me some HONEST feedback, you wont hurt my feelings. What did you like?? What did you not like?? What could I change??

Enjoy :) -Jackie

Carlmont Relay Speech 2010

 

Good evening, my name is Jackie Hutchison. I would like to introduce my siblings (Both stand up on stage, stay name and age). I recently graduated from 8^th grade at Tierra Linda Middle School and will be attending Sequoia High School next year.   Two years ago I watched my father speak right here, telling his story of being diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer, and sharing his thoughts about his battle and why he loved Relay for Life.    At that time, he was a one year and one month survivor.  I thought it looked like a lot of fun to get up and tell other people about your experience and I am happy to be here tonight to add a bit to his story.   For three years we had a Relay team with my dad.   Our team is called HERE FOR HUTCH.  When he spoke at the 2008 Relay, our team was 164 people, we raised over $17,000 and had a ton of fun.  Unfortunately, in November of that same year, 2008 our dad passed away.  At the time, I was 12 years old; my sister, Emily was 9 and my little brother, Gavin was 3.  Coming to the Carlmont Relay for Life was something my dad always looked forward to in the summer, basically the highlight of his summer as well as mine. The Relay was a time for family, friends and even people that you may not know, to get together and fight for an important cause. I also believe that the experience of these 24 hours, gives hope to all the fighters, survivors and loved ones out there.   Knowing that people have your back and are on your side when you are trying to fight this deadly disease is huge!   It gives you more confidence, a positive attitude and determination to be a survivor.     

    About a month ago, my school, Tierra Linda had our own mini Relay for Life.  I was in the leadership class that organized and set up the entire Relay. We had students get sponsors and raise money.  If and when we raised certain amount of money the teachers agreed to do some crazy things just to make it a little bit fun. When we hit 2,000 dollars some teachers dyed their hair purple and/or get a pie in their face. At 2,500 the girls of this leadership class got the dress up some of our guy teachers as women. That was my favorite. When we reached 3,000 the 7^th grade English teacher agreed to break dance with a couple other students. In the end, we raised more than 6,000 dollars all donated to the American Cancer Society.  At the opening ceremony of this mini Relay, my sister and I had the chance to speak and tell our story to the 600+ kids at Tierra Linda. After the opening ceremony, the different grade levels, 5-8, rotated through different stations consisting of: Walking laps around the field, participating in an obstacle course, making luminary bags and watching a documentary about cancer. The luminary bags that the students made were donated to the Relay for Life, so you might see some here today. The activities were followed by a closing ceremony with a slideshow of people who have been lost to cancer as well as the brave survivors.   I think that the students got a lot out of this day.  They certainly learned a lot about cancer, they realized how many people have been touched by the disease and that we can support the people trying to find the cure for cancer in many different ways.  I am very proud to have helped organize this event.

   

As Winston Churchill once said “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”  

    My dad strongly agreed with Winston Churchill. When I was in 5^th grade, my first year in middle school, we carpooled with some friends to school. When it was our week to drive it was always a fun week. My dad would always have something fun for us to do. One week he printed out the lyrics to the song “Accentuate the Positive” by Bing Crosby, and brought the music so everyone could sing along. The lyrics say:

You’ve got to accentuate the positive

Eliminate the negative

Latch on to the affirmative

Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.

    I thought this was by far the most embarrassing thing that happened driving in carpool to school. Now looking back on this scene, I realized that he was trying to send us a message. That message being - no matter what happens to you, always have a positive outlook on life.  It makes a big difference and I know this was how my dad lived his life.

    This is an incredible honor to be able to speak tonight.  This Relay for Life has been an important event to my family and friends for the past four years and will continue to be until we find a cure for this insane disease.  Thank you to everyone who is here tonight to help find a cure for cancer.  To all the survivors out there tonight, keep fighting and know that everyone is here to support your cause and to help you win your battle. To all of you who are here to support a loved one or are here in memory of a loved one, thank you. You have been by their side, or still are by their side, throughout the entire journey and you believed in them. That is huge.   I want everyone here listening tonight to remember if you are ever in a bad situation, ACCENTUATE the positive and ELIMINATE the negative.  Thank youJ.

 

Hi all,

It has been forever since I have updated this blog. This time, just to give you an overview of the last 7 months, I am going to point out a couple highlights of each month and give a breif description. Our last post was the 1st anniversary of our Dad's passing, that was in November, so I'll start with December 2009.

December:

1. The Leckers Leave- Our cousins that were living with us for a couple months (Aunt Kerry, Kelsey, Maddie and Ellie) decided to return to New Jersey to be closer to Uncle Greg and get settled again. We really miss them now, but we are glad that we got to spend lots of fun times with them here in CA. 

2.Christmas- I went to Kenmare, Ireland to spend Christmas vacation with 3 cousins, my great aunt and my grandma on my dads side. We had a blast!! Everyone else stayed here in Cali and got presents from Santa. Gavin got a motorcycle and Emily got a new pet hamster named Luna, who surprisingly is still alive today.

January:

1. New Years- The day after I had returned from Ireland we headed up the Sonoma about an hour and a half away from home to spend New Years Eve with our close family friends the Kondos. We rode segways, saw movies and had a blast!!

2.Jones Gulch- As a 5th grader, Emily got the chance to go up to the Santa Cruz mountains for a week with her class. They learned a lot about the outdoors and I think she had a really good time.

Febuary:

1. Gavin's 5th birthday- Batman came on the 12th to celebrate Gavin's 5 year old birthday. It was a crazy day with a dozen 4 and 5 years olds, but in the end I think we all had a lot of fun.

2. Interviews- Through Febuary and March, I continued to go to interviews for highschools. I interviewed at Saint Francis and Woodside Priory. Both interviews went very well, but in the end, my mom and I decided staying local and attending Seqouia High School next year would be best.

March:

1. St. Patty's Day- This year St. Patrick's Day was a little more low key than the Hutchisons are used to. We had a couple families over to our house for a traditional Corn Beef and Cabbage dinner. Even though this holiday was not as crazy as usual, we all still had a good time.

2. Spring Break in Ireland- For spring break I returned to Ireland, this time the whole family went along and we also took the Kondo family. We did things like bike riding and walking in to town. We even got to stay in the Dromoland castle for a couple nights and did archery, a walk with hawks and a horseback ride. 

April:

1. 10k- For months my friends from my soccer team and I trained to run 6.2 miles along the Santa Cruz beach. We all finished in under an hour and I had a really good time.

2. Black Eyed Peas Concert- Emily, my mom and I got to go the Black Eyed Peas concert with a bunch of friends. The openers for the BEPs were LMFAO and Ludacris, who were both people/bands that I heard of before. This concert was a lot of fun.

May:

1. Allstars- This year was the first year that Emily made the San Carlos Allstar softball team. She was very happy and I think she had a outstanding softball season.

2.TL Relay for Life- Every year our school does something nice for the community. This year we had our own Mini Relay. As an 8th grader, I was part of a leadership class that organized the entire Relay. At the opening ceramonies Emily and I got to speak and share our story to the entire 600+ kids at Tierra Linda. Our school raised over $6,000 for cancer research.  As a result of this Relay, I got asked to speak at the big relay at Carlmont this year. The one we always participate in. I accepted the invitation and will be speaking at the Luminary Ceramony next weekend.

June:

1. Graduates- Both Gavin and I graduated this year. Gavin from preschool and myself from middle school. Gavin will be attending kindergarden at Heather Elemenetary, where both Emily and I went.  As I said earlier I will be a freshman in highschool at Seqouia. 

2. Relay for Life- This year we are not planning on doing anything big. I will be speaking around 8pm saturday June 26 for any of you that are reading this and might want to drop by and watch that. So, we are kind of on the low key side for this year. Both Emily and I will be playing in softball tournaments and will drop by to walk laps as often as we can.

No big summer plans for us this year. We are going to take our anual trip to Yosemite in July and maybe a trip back to the east Coast to visit family in August, Then back to school. Hope everyone out there reading this is having an awesome summer, and I will try to update again ASAP. See you soon :)

-Jackie

 

 

One Year...so fast but so slow at the same time

        Hi friends.  It's Emily, finally.  Happy Thanksgiving!!!  Today is the one year anniversary of my dad's passing.  My family, my grandma JoJo, my cousins from New Jersey and I created a memorial garden for my dad in the far back part of our backyard.  Today we had the garden blessed by our priest, Rev. Melanie Donahoe. We planted azeleas, camelias and the best part - 2,000 shamrock seeds!  Here's a picture of us working. Lots has happened since Jackie wrote last time, but I hate this typing so I'm going to list the stuff and then give it over to Jackie.  I'm getting kind of bored.  So here's some stuff that's happened.  1.  I'm in middle school now in 5th grade.  Middle school is very cool.  2.  Our cousins from New Jersey came to live with us.  3.  I got my ears pierced for my 10th birthday.  4. We made dad's garden (I already said that), so now so here is Jackie.

 

    Hey, its Jackie.  Didnt take to long for that to happen. It sounds like Emily started to talk about our day today so I will finish it up. We decided to spend this anniversary day doing things that dad liked and going to places that reminded us of him.  In the morning we went to IHOP for breakfast around 10:30. IHOP was one of our dad's favorite breakfast places. After a delicious breakfast, we headed out to the Stanford Memorial church where we had dad's services last year.  Once we were done with our prayers we went on our way home to meet Rev. Melanie Donahoe.  Melanie arrived around 2pm, to lead us in a blessing for dad's memorial garden. My grandma Jackie, Aunt Kerry, Kelsey, Maddie and Ellie all did the blessing with us.  During the blessing, we scattered some of dad's ashes next to the celtic cross that my mom and jojo chose for the garden.  Speaking of choosing stuff for the garden we each got to choose some things to put in the garden.  We hung a plaque in the garden that had a family of butterflies on it, with one missing butterfly.  It read "Those whom we love and lose are no longer where they used to be.  Now they are wherever we are."   Then we went to the garden store and each picked out a butterfly to hang near the plaque.  You can see them behind us in the picture.  Then Gavin picked a bunny to put in the garden, Emily picked a green glass globe, I picked a stone that said "dad's garden" and mom picked a hanging thing that was shaped like a heart and had five small candles to light.   This is a cool place for us, I can't wait to go there at night.

 After scattering dad's ashes, to fun part of our day started.  Most of you didnt know this about our dad, but almost everyday during his recovery time he would go to Jamba Juice(a popular smoothie joint), and get a shot of wheatgrass along with a small smoothie. These shots were said to strengthen your immune system. So since this is what he did almost everyday, we went to Jamba Juice today and we all got shots. On the count of 3 everyone downed their wheatgrass. In the beginning I didnt think that it tasted that bad, but once the aftertaste came it was nasty. We all started chugging our smoothies. I couldnt believe that my dad did this everyday. GROSS!! Then we went home because everyone was very tired from a long day.  We still had planned a couple of more stops to make, but we ran out of time.  We'll finish our tribute to dad over the weekend, especially with the Notre Dame/Stanford football game.  We'll have a big tailgate and cheer for both sides (but I'm a Stanford girl...Emily will root for ND....Gavin will cheer for "Baby Dame" as he calls it).  I think today was a wonderful way to celebrate and remember our dad. I will remember this day for the rest of my life.

    Emily also mentioned that our cousins from New Jersey came to live with us in August.  My dad's sister, Aunt Kerry and our three girls cousins, Kelsey (my age, 13), Maddie and Ellie (11 - twins, same grade as Emily) came to live with us while their dad is looking for a job on the east coast.   We are in the same grades and they go to our middle school so it is really fun to have them here.  They have settled in and we have a lot of fun.  Besides school, we've done fun things like touring San Francisco, going to the Half Moon bay beach, Stanford games, Giants game, parties, girls scouts, Alcatraz, going to watch each other play sports, It has been great having the Leckers here.  Bailey, our dog loves them too.

    That is all that is new in the Hutchison household. We had a really good time celebrating and remembering our good father, brother, husband, uncle and friend to all.  We miss dad very much but we made it a fun day.   Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and make sure to tell the people you love how thankful you are for them.  Talk to you again soon and I'm going to make Emily practice her typing, that was pretty weak.  Happy Thanksgiving!!

Time Flies When You Are Having Fun!!

Hi all,

Jackie again. You haven't been updated for about 2 months, so i decided that now is the time on a hot summer day right after a dip in the pool. I'm going to update all of you with the same format i did last entry: Our Past, Our Present, and Our Future. First up is the past.

Our Past

Many of you joined us on June 20 and 21 for the 3rd annual Team Hutch Relay for Life and those you that didnt, we missed you a lot.  We had a great turnout and a lot of fun.  One special part was that our Uncle Tim came from Pittsburgh, PA to do the relay with us and spend Father's Day with us.  He Rox!  It was very cool and windy this year. We were all very surprised.  On Sunday June 21 we found out that our team placed 3rd in top fundraising. We were all very proud of our 3rd place finish.  Congrats and thank you to all who donated.  After a long weekend most of you joined us back at our house for a Fathers Day BBQ with our favorite chef Eddie Vargas. Thank You very much to Eddie for the delicious food.   This year I designed the team t-shirts and the words to one of Daddy's favortie irish songs is on the back.  In case you don't have one, you might like to hear the words;

TEAM HUTCH 2009

"So here's to you, and our time together

I'll share with you a parting glass,

I'd bid adieu with some smiles and laughter

Our time apart will be short and pass."

      -  Cathy Ryan "So Here's to You"

The weekend after Relay for Life,I had a Nationals Qualifing softball tournament. In past years for Nationals I have gone with my team to St.Louis,Missouri and Las Cruces, New Mexico. Unfortunately this year in the end we did not qualify, but it was nice to have a summer off of Nationals where they send you to the middle of nowhere where it is crazy hot. The weekend of 4th of July, we went with the Kondo family up to their 2nd home in Sonoma, CA called Casa de Kondo.  They have another name for it but we call it Casa de Kondo.  It is really nice. On the 4th, we went in to downtown Sonoma for a wonderful parade.  Next, we took our annual trip up to Yosemite with the LaDuke,Fitzpatrick, Kondo and Dimick families. Our family and the Fitzpatricks arrived on Wednesday July 8th. The Kondos and LaDuke families came up on Thursday. On Friday, It wuz my 13th birthday so we went on the Mist Trail. The Mist Trail is a trail up the side of Vernal Falls in Yosemite all in mist. That was very fun and my mom had tshirts made for everyone with the help of Elisa McCoy(thank you Elisa) that said Happy 13th Birthday Jackie!! It was kind of dorky and embarrasing because everyone was asking who Jackie was but in the end it turned out the be very nice.  On Saturday the Dimick Family of 7 kids and 2 parents arrived. The babies were left at home.  We spent most of our days at the river rapids. On Saturday we scattered some of our Dads ashes near and on the river.  That was very nice because Yosemite was always his favorite trip during the summer.  At the place where we scattered the Holy water from Ireland and Dad's ashes, we left a rock that had the Irish blessing and a celtic cross carved into it.  (Mom said that was totally illegal, but if fit in and we wanted to do it).  Next year we're going to go look for it and I'm sure we'll find it. 

After a week of being at home me, my mom and Gavin headed up to Lake Tahoe for a softball tournament while Emily stayed home for a birthday party.The tournament was fun but we didnt place very well.The day after we came home from Tahoe my mom and I unpacked and then repacked for Ogden,Utah for softball once again.  As i told you earlier, my 12u team did not make it to Nationals but the San Carlos 14u team did qualify for Nationals in Utah.  They had a couple of injuries so they asked me to go with them. I said yes. So we spent a week in the scorching hot weather in Utah, we played 10 games and played teams from Half Moon Bay, Colorado,Wyoming and Utah. In the end we placed 9th out of 39 teams. Overall we did pretty good.  Now on to Our Present.

Our Present

There really isn't much going on in the Hutch Household these days. We are done traveling for the summer. I forgot to tell you that our family trip to Ireland this summer got rescheduled til Christmas time.  We couldn't find a time to all go together, so we'll spend Christmas together.  That's the plan right now, I'll keep you posted.  Emily has been reading for her Mother/Daughter Book Club. Gavin is going to Wee Woods camp at Burton Park in San Carlos. For me, I'm starting tomorrow two day conditioning with my soccer team. We condition from 8-9am and then again from 6-8 pm all next week. I'm not too excited so wish me luck. As for my mom she is trying to start excersizing and ready for school to start so are Emily,Gavin and myself.

Our Future

On August 24 Emily and I go to orientation day at Tierra Linda Middle School. This day is where you get your locker and your schedule and find all your classrooms. Emily will be an incoming 5th grader and I will be an 8th grader.  This means I only have to live one year with her.  Gavin starts his second and last year in preschool after labor day. 

Time flies when you are having fun. The Hutchison Family is having a really fun summer and we hope you are too. We hope to see you all soon.   Also, Emily is complaining that I got another post in before she got her chance, so now FOR SURE she gets the next turn.  Lucky you.  I'll talk to you later.

Jackie